Alright lovelies! I’ve decided to add a new weekly feature to the blog and I’m outrageously excited about it. Grady and I have collected quite a bevy of vintage children’s books, and I want to spotlight the best of them here. So each week I’ll be writing about a different book. Have I mentioned that I’m excited about this? Because I am. Seriously excited.
In choosing books to be featured, I’ll be looking for titles that are unexpected, beautifully illustrated, and with a healthy message. Not every book will be likely to meet these categories, but I promise to be very discerning and only share my favorites.
Anyway, to spread out the weekly feature posts, I’m changing the schedule a bit. Not that it matters even one ounce, really, but the “10 cool” posts will move to Wednesdays, “Pretty pages” (my name for this book feature) will post on Fridays, and “Imaginary shopping spree” will remain on Sundays. So long as I remember to write them in time.
So! Let’s get on to it, shall we? For the first installment of “Pretty pages,” I’ve chosen a recent purchase; “The Great Moon Hoax,” written by Franklyn M. Branley and illustrated by Richard E. Brown.
In 1835 New York City newspaper printed some stories about flying animals that lived on the moon. Later these stories became the Great Moon Hoax. A hoax is a sort of trick or joke. So you could call these stories the Great Moon Joke. Here’s the way it happened. …
“The Great Moon Hoax” is the true story of the public believing false fantastical stories about the moon. I really love non-fiction children’s books, and good ones are hard to find. So this one is appreciated.
This book kind of reminds me of the stories used to test reading comprehension in standardized testing. Remember when they made you read those stories, and once in a while you’d come across one that was actually really interesting? This book is like that. The phrasing is simple and terse, but the subject is really awesome. And the illustrations? Well, they’re incredible.
“The Great Moon Hoax” is pretty hard to find. It’s more of a pamphlet than a book; it’s only 16 pages, and is bound with staples. But you can find a crazy expensive copy here, or some cheap used copies here. I got my copy at a thrift store.
Do you have any recommendations for books to highlight in Pretty Pages? Would you like to write a post as a guest? Let me know in the comments!
